MILL CREEK CASITA

MODERN PAVILION

Leafing through the Real Estate Times on a fog shrouded summer, Sunday afternoon in San Francisco, we saw a picture, one of nine on the page, of THAT view. After a few years of driving around Napa and Sonoma Counties looking for the perfect spot, we thought, could this be it? If the “real view” was anything like that small photo, then we may have found our ‘home’.

The next weekend, Alan visited friends in Sonoma County and in the very early morning, drove up to the property just in time for the sunrise. He still remembers it, 23 years later, as a quiet and profound moment. Alan drove back to San Francisco and told Jonathan that the next day we would be having a picnic on that property. The small picture did not do it justice. It was a magical spot. A few months later, in the Fall of 2002, we owned the property!

As an architect (Jonathan) and designer (Alan), now we were the client. Despite, or because of that, the design process took a few years to settle upon a master plan and the look and feel for our new home. We were very clear from the outset, that we create a sanctuary for us, and whomever we had the pleasure to share our home with. We sought to incorporate not only our own programmatic and architectural needs and dreams, but the very essence of why we wanted to be there: the privacy, peacefulness, beauty of sunrises and sunsets, the seasonal change of the vineyards, the soft summer valley breezes, the settled fog in the valley, the slow sweep of the condors floating right in front of us in the uplifting air and, of course, THAT awesome view.

We finally finished the home in 2010, taking only 8 years to “capture” the view. The property has evolved over the last 15 years, but all of the attributes remain and the sanctuary that we sought to create is ever-present.